Pick Your Poison: Lajovic's Healthy Pathway To Success

For Dusan Lajovic, what started as a temporary, part-time fix to relieve pain quickly turned into a twice-daily ritual he dreaded.

In 2017, to help him delay hernia surgery, Lajovic started taking 150 milligrams of the anti-inflammatory diclofenac.

The Serbian was taking the medication 60 to 70 per cent of the time. But by 2018, as shoulder and elbow pain arose, he was taking the pills almost every day, one 75 mg after breakfast and another after dinner.

And because the pills can be tough on the liver and intestines, Lajovic also was undergoing blood tests every few months to make sure everything was okay.

It all took its toll on him, and he worried about the long-term effects. “Mentally, it's not easy when you have to pop that kind of pill every day,” Lajovic told ATPTour.com.

He wanted to stop taking them, but Lajovic thought managing pain through anti-inflammatories was just part of the life of a professional athlete.

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Last November, however, he quit. Now he's feeling healthier than ever and playing better than ever. The 29-year-old helped Serbia win the inaugural ATP Cup earlier this month in Sydney. On Tuesday, he beat 2018 Australian Open semi-finalist Kyle Edmund 7-6(7), 6-3, 7-6(4) to reach the second round and match his best showing in Melbourne.

“I'm pills-free, which is the first time in three years. It's a great achievement and I would like to stay that way,” Lajovic said.

In April 2017, he had a hernia that made him feel a bump of pain during daily activities, such as standing up from a chair.

But he wanted to put off surgery because he had recently started working with his new coach, Jose Perlas, the former coach of Top 10 players Carlos Moya, Albert Costa, Guillermo Coria and Fabio Fognini.

That off-season, Lajovic elected to have hernia surgery. He thought that would be the end of his pills habit.

But he woke from the surgery with a frozen right shoulder, a byproduct that mystifies him still today.

“I had issues with the shoulder that year, but never in this amount like I had after the surgery. I don't know why,” he said.

The shoulder pain led to elbow pain, which further prolonged his pill-popping. But all along he was working on rehab exercises with the hope of eliminating the anti-inflammatories from his diet.

Two months ago, however, he didn't care if the pain persisted or worsened; he was done taking pills.

“I just said, 'I cannot take this anymore', because I was feeling a little bit mentally not great every morning and every night putting a little poisonous pill in my body,” Lajovic said.

He feels more aches and pains now – “back, hip, knee, here, there, everywhere,” but he's glad. “I think that's what you have to feel. It's a good feeling,” he said.

On the court, the pills-free life has led to improvement as well. Because of his overall better health, Lajovic spent his entire three-week off-season improving his tennis.

In the past, he was limited because of health worries. In the 2018-19 off-season, for instance, he and Perlas worked on tennis for only seven days.

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“This was the first off-season actually in three years that I could do what we wanted,” he said.

The results also have shown quickly. At the ATP Cup, Lajovic gave Serbia a 1-0 lead four times, including two Top 25 wins against Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada (No. 21) and Russian Karen Khachanov (No. 17). Lajovic will face Aussie Marc Polmans for a place in the third round of the Australian Open on Wednesday.

“Basically everything came together,” Lajovic said of his strong ATP Cup, “and let's see if it's going to work through the whole season.”

from Tennis - ATP World Tour https://ift.tt/2GaT2Ue